


Old Dream

by Framlingem



Category: Tangled (2010)
Genre: Backstory, Fluff, Gen, Snorkels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 16:09:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Framlingem/pseuds/Framlingem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While sorting through their wedding gifts, Rapunzel and Eugene come across a parcel from an old friend of Eugene's. It contains something really special.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old Dream

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sumi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sumi/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, Sumi! I really enjoyed re-watching the movie - thank you so much for the excuse, and for the inspiring Yuletide letter. Thanks also to Kaesa for the super beta.

_This is the story.. of the story... of the day I died._

_Well, sort of. To start with, it’s the story of Flynn Rider. The original, I mean, not me. Actually, it starts with wedding presents._

“Wow.”  
“Yep.”  
“That’s...”  
“Yep.”  
“A heap.”  
“Yep.”  
“We are going to have to write so many thank-you notes.”  
“Yep.”  
“Will you stop saying ‘yep’?”  
“Nope - ow! How are your fists so strong, they’re tiny!”  
“Magic.”  
“Owwww.”  
“We should probably open them.”  
Eugene grinned unrepentantly. “Yep.”

It was indeed a heap of gifts. Someone had made a valiant effort at organizing them and trying to put them into a neat pile, but the top was looking dangerously unsteady, and Rapunzel was edging away from the left side of the heap. There were gifts from all the bordering kingdoms, gifts from the kingdoms that bordered those kingdoms, a gift from that one country whose government reputedly depended on goose livers for its decision-making (Eugene really, really hoped that goose livers were not involved in the gift in any way).

There were also some less elaborate gifts: a book full of drawings of the two of them from a local school (Ha! This kid even got his nose right! Eugene vowed to set up some kind of art scholarship), some art that Eugene was willing to bet was from Günter, a basket full of apples from an orchard just outside town, and a variety of other clumsily-wrapped gifts Eugene couldn’t even guess at.

On the other side of the heap, Rapunzel waved something at him. “This is from that country with the name I can’t pronounce. You know! I found that book about it in the castle library, it has a coral reef and all kinds of neat fish! What is this thing? I don’t even know what it is! How do I write a thank-you note for something I don’t even recognize?” She made a face at the curved object.  
“I think that’s a snorkel. You can swim with your face in the water and breathe through it. There’s probably a face mask somewhere that goes with it.”  
A muffled yell of triumph sounded from underneath a table with six sets of napkin rings on it. “Found it!”  
“Cool. We’ll have to take them on that grand tour your parents keep telling us to take. We can - huh.” Eugene pulled out a battered package.  
“We can what?”, said Rapunzel, poking her head around a suit of armour with a ribbon tied around it. “Hey, Eugene. Are you all right? What’s that?” She reached out and touched Eugene’s shoulder gently. He barely noticed.  
“Huh? Oh. Yeah, fine. It’s just... this is from Aloysius.”  
At Rapunzel’s expression, he immediately clarified. “He was one of the younger kids at the orphanage where I grew up! The house mother named all the babies. She had particular taste. She named me, Egbert, Prudence, Aloysius, Gertrude... wow. I haven’t seen Aloysius in years. I wonder how he’s doing.”  
“Is there a note?”  
Eugene shrugged and pulled apart the flaps of the package, triggering a small blizzard of sheets of paper. “Gah!”

Rapunzel bent and picked up a page. “The Tales of Flynnigan Rider, by Eugene FitzHerbert, aged nine and a half,” she murmured. “Eugene... you said you used to read this book to the other kids. You never said you wrote it!”  
“Hey,” said Eugene, not meeting her eyes. “A guy’s gotta have _some_ secrets, right? Anyway, it’s just a bunch of silly stories.... oh, look, there’s a note after all! Huh. Aloysius is in charge of the orphanage now. He married Prudence! Wow, how about that, those crazy kids, who knew, am I right?”  
“Eugeeeeeene.” Wow. That was one seriously raised eyebrow.  
“Fine, fine. Look, it’s just... I was kind of a weedy little kid. Nothing like the impressive specimen of manhood who managed to land the babe-iest babe in the kingdom. So I made up stories of all the things I wanted to do when I grew up. It all seemed a long way off, you know?”  
Rapunzel sat down on the floor and patted the floorboard beside her. Eugene sat down, and she leaned against his shoulder, picking up another page as she did.

“Flynnigan Rider,” she read, “struggled for breath as he placed one foot in front of the other. The air was getting thin, but he was determined to reach the mystical monastery at the peak of the mountain, where the monks were said to be able to tread so lightly they could run on water.”  
“Heh. Yeah. Not true, by the way. I went there... oh, about a year before we met. The thing about the air turned out to be real, boy, that was embarrassing, but the monks can run on _ice_ , it turns out. It still turned out to be pretty handy after I earned their trust and, er... borrowed. Yeah. Borrowed some of their figurines.”  
“Oh, Eugene. Really?”  
“Yep. It took me half an hour to lose the monks. They were pretty speedy for a bunch of old guys.”  
Rapunzel sighed. “Did weedy little Eugene do a lot of the same things as Flynnigan Rider, in the end?”  
“Most of them, yeah. There weren’t as many evildoers to vanquish, and dragons are apparently not real, so fighting one of those was difficult.”  
“Difficult?”  
“I stepped on a gecko, once.”  
“That totally counts.”  
“It totally does.”  
“Just watch out for Pascal.”  
“Will do.”

Eugene smiled a little. “I did get to do one thing Flynnigan Rider never managed,” he said. “I got rescued by a fair maiden. Flynnigan was a jerk, he hogged all the rescuing.”  
“We can take turns,” said Rapunzel, and kissed him.

 

***

Nearly a year later, almost done with their grand tour and worn out from what seemed like a hundred elderly noble couples offering marital advice over formal dinners, Rapunzel and Eugene stopped off at a small farm outside a tiny hamlet, three days’ ride from the capital. Older kids were feeding pigs, one teenager was ploughing a furrow in a small field, and littler children were pulling weeds in a vegetable garden, all supervised by a man slightly younger than Eugene. Maximus whinnied, and the man looked up, breaking immediately into a smile.  
“Eugene! Or, hey, is it Prince Eugene now?” he called.  
“If you call me Prince, Aloysius, I will end you!” Eugene hollered back. Drawing closer, he dismounted and jogged over, waving at the gathering crowd of kids. There were about a dozen of them, and they parted to make way for Rapunzel, staring at her.  
“Aloysius, may I present my wife - heh, wife, that will never get old - Rapunzel?”  
Aloysius bowed awkwardly. “Your Highness.”  
“Oh, please. I’ve had enough of that. Just Rapunzel, please!”  
Aloysius looked at the guard standing at the gate. “You sure, Your H - er, ma’am? I don’t want to be beheaded.”  
Eugene poked him. “No beheading, I promise. Now, where’s Prudence?”  
“She’s inside with the really little ones. We’ve got fifteen right now, three of them under five years old.”  
Eugene surveyed the assembled kids, who giggled nervously. “They look like scoundrels. Are they well-behaved? Because only good kids get to share the dinner we brought for everyone.” He draped an arm around Aloysius’s shoulders and steered him inside, leaving the older kids to teach Rapunzel how to plough a field. They all came in in the evening, covered in dirt, and were promptly sent to wash up before dinner, which was delicious.

 _...she was a princess worth waiting for,_ said Eugene, to the general acclamation of the pyjama’d children sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of Aloysius’s armchair, which Eugene had stol -- borrowed for the occasion. _Beloved by all, she led her kingdom with all the grace and wisdom that her parents did before her. And, as for Flynnigan Rider, well, he stopped thieving and basically turned it all around. But I know what the big question is. Did he and Rapunzel ever get married? Well, I’m pleased to tell you that after years and years of asking and asking and asking, Flynnigan finally said yes._

“Eu _gene._ ”  
Eugene stuck his tongue out at his wife, and beamed when all the kids did likewise. “All right, all right. He asked her.”  
“And they lived happily ever after! Now, Miss Prudence tells me it’s bedtime.”

There was a chorus of moans and groans, but the kids shuffled off upstairs. Rapunzel leaned on the doorjamb.  
“I don’t remember that story being in the parcel,” she said.  
“You kidding?” said Eugene. “You must have seen it. It’s the best one.”


End file.
